


and all the gods in all the worlds began colliding

by Adversarial



Series: tick, tick, boom! [2]
Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Anal Sex, Character Study, Degradation, Dubious Consent, Edd and Matt are still background characters, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Frottage, M/M, Phone Sex, Physical Abuse, Rough Oral Sex, Tom just wants to go to bed, Tord is slowly losing his mind, Waffle House, collaring, slight bloodplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-02 23:14:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10954734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adversarial/pseuds/Adversarial
Summary: He pauses. When he speaks again, his tone is much less level. "My back, Tord.”You remember this feeling, how it slammed hard into you when you left him cut open on the counter, how violently your hands had been shaking when you tried, over and over, to wash his blood off your hands. Self-loathing and desperation and fear and possession and disgusting, disgusting pride."Oh.”---(an allegory:once upon a time, there was a young man chained up in a cave-)





	1. act i - (my calling is to break apart and fall to pieces)

You've never found a word to describe how things look different at night.

You're back in the main lobby of Tom's apartment complex. Shadows hang differently without the sun-- something about the artificial light makes the whole place look a little more tired. 

You remember, when you'd first moved and still didn't speak English as well as you'd wanted to, how you'd looked for a word for this difference. You dug through dictionary after encyclopedia after Internet article, awash in a sea of adjectives and adverbs and parts of speech you still can't quite parse, foiled by the fact that you were missing the words you needed to find the word that you needed to find. English is strange, circular, textured in all the wrong places. Redundant where it shouldn't be and somehow still lacking. Beautiful, in its own way, and highly specific, impenetrable to outsiders but reasonable once you immerse yourself completely. Shades of meaning assimilated from twisted-up constituent parts, grammar a mess and inconsistent at best but expressive and comprehensible despite itself. You were surprised when you found yourself thinking in it, dreaming in it.

Two flights of stairs are separating you from him and already your head has turned to metaphors. 

—

(you'd spent the day in a haze, kept your face buried in his hoodie, wandered the streets of his neighborhood alone. sixteen hours, paul had asked for, we'll have you a transport in sixteen hours, boss, will it be a transport for two?

the connection was awful and your voice must have crackled when you said no.)

—

He's on your mind again, has been all day. You take a month from your life and give it all to one person and they do that, stick in your mind.

You want to go up, knock on his door, ask him if you've been occupying his thoughts. What does he do all day when you're not around? Who is he when you're not around? 

You feel another compulsion welling up, push it away automatically and keep your distance and stop yourself from going up the stairs and opening the door and pushing him down and kissing him so hard that you know that he can't notice anything but you, can't feel anything but you, kiss him until he doesn't know his own name but still whispers yours, become his everything for a moment. It would be so easy, you reason. Two flights of stairs, a knock. He'd enjoy it. 

You're justifying. His hoodie smells like his soap and you smell like his soap and the idea that soon neither of these things will be true makes you feel a little sick. It's natural to want to prolong this. 

You have two hours left before pickup. You exit back onto the street before you can do anything you'll regret.

—

(an allegory:

once upon a time, there were seven billion prisoners chained up in a cave. 

they faced the wall, and behind them was a fire. beyond the fire was the mouth of the cave, and beyond the cave life would go on, casting shadows on the cave walls. the prisoners, remembering nothing before the cave, began to name the shadows. four legs and a snout, that's a pig! two wheels and a bell, a bicycle! life went on behind them and the prisoners, convinced there was nothing beyond the shadows, spoke and breathed and laughed and whiled their lives away.

until one day, one of the prisoners escaped his chains. he turned to the mouth of the cave and saw true fear and poverty and a desperation for understanding he had never imagined. he exited and experienced cruel reality and ran back at sunset bursting with the truth.

but when he tried to explain to the other prisoners what he had seen, everybody thought he was insane. after all, how could there be anything other than the shadows?)

—

You're stumbling through the dark again, tripping over curbs with your still-new lack of dimensional vision. The streetlights hum, pass judgement like spindly guardian angels of the sidewalks. You feel it creeping up on you, the old paranoia.

You bury your face deeper in Tom's hoodie, take a reassuring breath (you're back with him for a moment, back to when he cleaned your wounds and you'd curled against his chest and he'd been solid where you were trembling and you'd slept for the first time in days) and quicken your step. Two hours until Paul arrives. You could find somewhere to wait for two hours.

Ideally, you concede, it would have been easier if you'd thought to call Paul the night before (when you'd felt him deep inside you, heard him moan as you pleasured yourself with his body, collapsed next to him full of light and affection and obsession with the new way he smiled at you) but you were distracted, weren't you.

—

(an allegory:

once upon a time, there were two prisoners chained up in a cave. 

they faced the wall together, and behind them was a fire. beyond the fire was the mouth of the cave, and beyond the cave life would go on, casting shadows over them both. the prisoners, knowing nothing but the cave, began to name the shadows. depression and quiet loathing, your life! the person you hate most, your lover! everything went on without them and the prisoners, convinced there was nothing beyond the shadows, shouted and fucked and fought and thought that they would die there together.

until one day, both of the prisoners escaped their chains. they turned to the mouth of the cave and saw the godawful truth and together they walked into the world.  
one of the prisoners, horrified by what he had seen, ran back to the cave, redid his own chains. his companion rushed in after him, calling his name. don't leave me, he said, don't leave me alone with this awful truth! but no matter how he begged and pleaded, the other would not budge from the cave.

after all, said his partner, through gritted teeth, how could there be anything other than this?)

—

You're striding across the block, headed quickly towards a nearby strip mall. The street lights are oppressive and you can't stand the buzz of them, the way they feel on your skin, the way they look unblinkingly down on Tom's hoodie. They make you feel unsafe, unclean.

It's been barely a day since you left and already you miss him desperately. You miss waking up with him and the scratchiness of his stubbly chin when he nuzzles against your chest and the look of concentration on his face when he plays bass for you. You've been in lust and you've been in love but Tom is a category all his own. 

You let your fingers slip up to your neck, trace the hickie he left you, press down on it to feel the little twinge of pain. You close your eye and remember how his breath had ghosted over your skin, how his lips had felt cool against your throat, take a shuddering breath as he begins to suck-

You need him, you realize suddenly, shockingly, snapping out of your reverie and fumbling a burner phone out of your pocket and dialing his number before common sense can catch up to you. You need him you need him you need-

—

(an allegory:

once upon a time, there were two lovers chained up in a cave. 

they faced the truth together, and behind them was a fire. beyond the fire was the mouth of the cave, and beyond the cave other people's lives would go on, casting their shadows over the lovers. the prisoners, not knowing anything but the cave, began to name the shadows. a barrel and a bullet, a gun! sharp edges and seeping bandages, true love! life went on behind them and the prisoners, convinced there was nothing beyond this, cursed and fought and screamed and threw their lives away together.

until one day, one of the prisoners escaped his chains. he turned to the mouth of the cave and saw care and affection and a desperation for understanding he had never imagined. he exited the cave and experienced true love and ran back at sunset begging for forgiveness from his lover.

but when he tried to caress his partner, to show him the affection he had learned, his lover flinched away, unused to anything but the touch of searing fire. 

after all, said the lover, eyes already charred black by the truth, how could there be anything other than this?)

—

He picks up on the second ring. "Tord?”

You can breathe again. "Miss me yet?” 

He's silent for a second and you can hear quiet discussions on the other line. "Sorry, Edd and Matt were talking. We just got back from the ER.”

Your chest constricts. "Oh?”

"Yeah, just. Give me a sec." There's more muffled dialogue, and you hear the phrase "stay away from him, Tom." You feel the beginnings of panic welling up as you consider the possibility of him hanging up, start plotting how long it would take to sprint back to the apartment complex and- 

"Alright, I'm back. What do you want?" He sounds suspicious, guarded. You want to know what his face is doing right now, if his eyebrows are furrowing the way they do when he's actually annoyed or if his forehead is smooth and he's keeping you at arm's length deliberately or-

"What were you doing in the ER?" You're getting close to the strip mall, switching your phone to your organic hand to slip your robotic one into your pocket. 

He pauses. When he speaks again, his tone is much less level. "My back, Tord.”

You remember this feeling, how it slammed hard into you when you left him cut open on the counter, how violently your hands had been shaking when you tried, over and over, to wash his blood off your hands. Self-loathing and desperation and fear and possession and disgusting, disgusting pride. 

"Oh.”

—

(an allegory:

once upon a time, there were two prisoners chained up in a cave. 

until one day, one of the prisoners escaped his chains. he walked on out of the cave on his own and faced the fucking truth and made it, he survived alone goddamnit, he didn't need the other prisoner and when the sun burned his eyes he closed them and breathed deeply and he faced the world alone.

except he couldn't, weak as he was, so he came back to the cave. talked to the other prisoner at the mouth of the cave and asked forgiveness and tried to say that no one could understand what it was like in that cave, no one understood how he saw the world and it was so, so lonely out here- 

he didn't explain himself very well.)

—

You're approaching the Waffle House and already he's screaming at you over the phone, ugly obscenities and accusations and poorly-worded arguments that have you shaking with anger. You’ve been on the phone with him for ten minutes. How’d you manage to forget how insufferable he is?

"You disfigured me, goddamnit! Do you know what the doctors said? Do you know how long this'll take to heal?”

"Why are you-" you manage, before he cuts you off again, only infuriating you more.

"You jackass, I'll never look normal again!" His rage is searing, the way it always is.

"You never looked normal, darling," you hiss, and he is suddenly silent. "Or did you let yourself forget that?”

He doesn't have a retort, so you twist the knife for good measure. "You're a freak of nature, Tom. It's time that you acknowledged it.”

You can hear him breathing heavily on the other end. No reply. Good.

You're pushing open the door to the Waffle House when he finally spits, "fuck you.”

This is what breaks you. You laugh into the receiver derisively, cut him off before he can say anything else. "Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Can you even hear yourself? I don't know why I give you the time of day, Tom. I call you to make sure that you're surviving in my absence and you have done nothing but spit in my face. I don't know why I expected anything else from such an ungrateful little shit. This is why everybody leaves you in the end, Tom. This is why you're alone in your apartment, poor and jobless. You're worthless. It's a wonder that I even bother to keep up with you at all." You pause, prepare to continue, but find your train of thought interrupted. "Are you getting off to this?”

"I-" he starts, but you keep talking, newly enraged.

"You're getting off to this. Amazing. Did you know, Tom, that you're the first person I've met who can masturbate to their own uselessness?”

"I'm not-“

"Stop interrupting. If this is how you want it to be, I'll give you what you want. You want me to talk dirty to you, don't you? You want me to tell you what a bad boy you've been, put you in your place." You're standing in the middle of the Waffle House now and the hostess barely gives you a second glance as you slink over to a booth and sit down. Your robotic hand is clenching and unclenching in your hoodie sleeve. He's worthless. Trash. You shouldn't be wasting your time on him, but you're a man possessed, now. You need to see him brought lower. You need to know he's touching himself and hating himself the way he should, seeing himself the way he should, the way you see him. You need to know you can make him this way, make him needy and desperate and the thought of him is making you hard, the thought of him needing you to bring him off makes you hard, you need him to need you and you don't care how you do it at this point-

You're growling into the phone. "Tell me that's what you need, Tom. Tell me how badly you need to be punished.”

"Tord..." His sentence trails off. You hear the sound of his breathing hitching, familiar and painful all at once. It stokes your fervor.

"Tell me you've been a bad boy, Tom.”

He hesitates, and you're about to repeat yourself when you hear him whisper, "I've been a bad boy.”

—

(an allegory:

once upon a time, there were two prisoners chained up in a cave. 

until one day, one of the prisoners escaped his chains and beat the other with his bare fists and screamed and screamed and screamed until the other prisoner was dead, dead, dead and he kept hitting him until he collapsed onto the cave floor, alone-)

—

"Look at yourself," you say, "how pathetic do you have to be for this to turn you on?”

You hear him breathe out suddenly, somewhere between a moan and a sigh, and can't help picturing him. How his skin looks where you've bruised it, where you've broken it. "If I were there, I'd make you see how pathetic you are. I'd grab you and drag you to the bathroom and make you look in the mirror while you touched yourself, Tom. I'd make you look at yourself the way I look at you.” 

The waitress seems to be keeping her distance for the moment, and you surreptitiously slide your hand down to the front of your pants, rub at the tent that's already forming. "You're already so hard, Tom, just touching yourself. Your skin is flushed and you're leaning back on me because you can't support your own weight. It'll hurt because your back is still healing. What does it say on your back, slut?”

"Tord," he groans. Your eyelid flutters as you slip your hand past your waistband and grab at your aching cock. 

"Who owns you?”

"You do," he manages, gasping for breath. He's yours he's yours he's yours he's yours-

"Tord, please-”

"Please may you what, Tom?”

You can see the sheen of his sweat in your mind's eye, the way his Adam's apple bobs as he tries and fails not to drool. "Please, may I come?”

"Disgusting," you murmur, and you hear him whimper. "It's disgusting that you're aroused by this.”

He cries out suddenly, comes without your permission, and you listen carefully as he gasps for breath. "Sorry," he pants. "I couldn't hold out.”

"Of course you couldn't," you say, and he waits several long moments before hanging up.

—

(an allegory:

i hate you i hate you i hate you don't you fucking leave me again i'll kill you before i let you leave me again-)

—

The waitress approaches you once you start to visibly calm down, voice droll as she asks you for your order. Distracted, you wind up with a large plate of hash browns, smothered in cheese (the way Edd always got them when you were in college and would come to Waffle House while you pulled another unnecessary all-nighter). You accept the proffered cup of coffee ("looks like you need it, honey") and try not to wince when you taste it. 

You fork hash browns into your mouth absentmindedly. It's been a while since you'd last eaten, you realize, and after spending a month with Tom's reasonably regular meal schedule you're not used to going full days without food anymore. Just another little thing you'll have to get used to again.

—

(college had been a good time for you. in the old days, back before you'd noticed tom, you'd thought of nothing more important than making reasonably good grades and enjoying yourself. edd was funny and matt was shallow but entertaining and you'd tolerated tom as best you could, focused on your studies, buried yourself in your studies because leaving yourself with too little to do got you thinking and that was-

not to be dwelled on, because this was college. you drank and went on crazy adventures and crammed for tests and pranked matt and went with edd on four am waffle house runs where he introduced you to hash browns over calculus homework. you'd pushed down the deep sinking wrongness of it all until one day you paid a little more attention to tom and saw the way he flinched sometimes, the same way you did, when he turned on the news-

but until then you sang along to the latest music on american radio and fretted about your education a little less than you probably should have and didn't think about anything too hard.

maybe things were better then.)

—

There's something oddly soothing about being in a Waffle House late at night. 

The lights are still wrong and the shadows still make everything tired, cast strange glows on the linoleum and red plastic seats, but you take another sip of mediocre coffee (you miss it the way Tom makes it, with cream and a little more sugar than you feel is strictly necessary, and you bicker with him over the best amount of sugar for coffee as you wrap your arms around his waist and rest your chin on his shoulder-) and feel relatively safe. 

Paul confirms your location and tells you that transport will be ready in five. You rise, thank your waitress, tip generously on your way out. You leave the diner and its strange-hanging shadows and tired memories behind, bury your hands deep in bloodstained hoodie pockets, exhale and build your walls back up and prepare to be the leader your army needs you to be.

—

(an allegory:

once upon a time, there was a young man chained up in a cave. 

he faced the wall, and behind him was a fire. beyond the fire was the mouth of the cave, and beyond the cave life would go on. The prisoner, remembering nothing before the cave, began to name the shadows. a barrel and a bullet, a gun! the person you hate most, your lover! life went on behind him and the prisoner, convinced there was nothing beyond the shadows, spoke and breathed and laughed and whiled his life away.

until one day, the prisoner escaped his chains. he turned to the mouth of the cave and saw the world for what it really was. he exited and experienced reality and ran back at sunset sobbing with the awful truth. 

it was painful and the sun burned his eyes but it was real and undeniably true, how had he ever thought anything different? and he would fix it, he would fix it, he would fix it if it killed him, he filled the cave with twigs and let the fire burn it down so that he would have nothing to come back to and he would put out the fucking sun to stop the red burning in his eyes.)

—

Two hours later, you’re back at the base.

Your office is just as meticulous as you left it, as are your quarters. Patryk follows you from a respectful distance, quietly updating you on all of the changes that have occurred since your sudden departure a month ago. The loss of your robot wasn't as much of a hindrance as you'd feared it to be, and your memory of the blueprints is clear enough that you don't foresee this staying a hindrance for much longer. When Patryk takes his leave, saluting and welcoming you home, you let yourself sigh with relief.

You'd missed this, you realize. The power, the deference, the unyielding faith of your supporters. Here, in your fortress, you are king. Here, with your army, you will bring the world to its knees and hack off every sharp unpleasant reality until nothing was left to hurt you again. Until nothing was left to hurt Tom again.

—

(an allegory:

once upon a time, there were seven billion prisoners chained up in a cave. 

they faced the wall, and behind them was a fire. beyond the fire was the mouth of the cave, and beyond the cave life would always go on, casting shadows on the cave walls. the prisoners, remembering nothing before the cave, began to name the shadows. depression and quiet self-loathing, your life! sharp edges and seeping bandages, true love! life went on behind them and the prisoners, convinced there was nothing beyond the shadows, spoke and breathed and laughed and whiled their lives away.

until one day, one of the prisoners escaped his chains. he turned to the mouth of the cave and saw true fear and poverty and a desperation for understanding he had never imagined. he exited and experienced cruel reality and ran back at sunset bursting with the truth. he would set them free and burn down the cave so that they could never be tricked into living like this again.

but when he tried to explain to the other prisoners what he had seen, none of them understood him except for one, a man with black eyes burned sightless by the sun.  
and the prisoner who was most recently freed, he wondered if maybe he would be alright so long as this one man understood him. so long as he was never alone with that godawful truth. 

but the longer he spent with the blind man, the more convinced he was that something had to change. his companion was dying.

come with me, he told the blind man. come with me into the sun. 

the blind man laughed and took another sip of his alcohol. i can't, said the blind man, as the prisoner kissed him. after all, how could there be anything other than this?)

—

It's four AM and you're listening to the phone ring from where you're curled up alone in your bed. Your face is buried in his hoodie. Tomorrow, you'll wake up and fold it carefully and hide it deep in your drawer and put on your uniform again. Tomorrow you'll be Red Leader and step up to the podium and give a soul-rending speech about Plato and humanity and the nature of shadows, pour your heart out into your words and draw a few more people into your army and give your followers faith that you can bring the world to its knees by virtue of your determination alone. 

But tonight your heart is in your throat and he picks up right before it goes to voicemail and his voice is hoarse when he asks, "what the fuck do you want from me, Tord?”

"I love you," you mumble, burying your face in your hands and not thinking about how he was in the emergency room and how you carved your name into him and how much you need him to need you.

“… I know," he says, and you close your eye.

—

(… stop me if you've heard this one.

once upon a time, there were two lovers chained up in a cave. 

they both remembered a time when their worlds consisted of more than this cave. they talk about it sometimes, but mostly they watch the shadows flicker and try to ignore the quiet whimpers coming from outside. they're safe here for the moment.

one says to the other, i'm leaving soon. come with me. 

his lover says, i can’t.

there's a whole world beyond this cave, you argue, please, tom, it's awful out there and i can't face it alone.

he shifts in his chains, refuses to look at you. his eyes have been burned black by the sun. 

he says, tord, i love you but you're killing me-)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "and now I think my calling is to break apart and fall to pieces,  
> better yet,  
> invent a brand new method of ascension..." 
> 
> \- Ugly Story, PhemieC
> 
> \---
> 
> "I'll wait until after graduation to update," I say. "I'll have more time and I'll be able to focus better," I say. "I should be studying for my goddamn finals," I say. 
> 
> "Well shit," I say, writing four thousand words of gay fanfiction about a cartoon character misinterpreting Plato's Allegory of the Cave. A single crystalline tear rolls down the cheek of my lovely beta reader (@jinxedlucky) as they correct yet another basic spelling error. "Looks like we're updating."
> 
> Welcome back to Tick, Tick, Boom! Hmu at @idiosyncraticmagic on tumblr and expect another chapter coming up soonish!


	2. act ii - (let the bullets fly, oh let them rain)

Your first day back, you take the podium with shaking hands, look out over the sea of your army, and with a voice quivering under the weight of its own intensity you speak.

You speak of loneliness and fear and fragile hope and you drag people to tears and you reach deep inside yourself and wrench out every ounce emotion you can spare and you speak of a future tainted and a future crushed and people are screaming now, screaming for blood and your quivering voice rises and you're shouting words of transformation and revelation and revolution, revolution, and they are pounding their feet and you are high on their praise.

You were a natural-born leader and you saw the wrongs of this world and these people, your army, they trust you to take those infinite innumerable fucking wrongs and make a right and you are shaking under the weight of it the unbearable ungodly weight of being a savior and you smile like hell and you speak of a brighter future.

You raise your iron fist to tear down the goddamn heavens, to tear down every oppression and hanging bereavement, to tear freedom straight from God and the crowd is roaring in your ears.

They're chanting your name like a prayer, they would kill for you, die for you, some already have and you've filed death reports like they were nothing and you keep screaming yourself hoarse for revolution and you tear down the skies over and over again and you are hollow inside.

\---

(the second you're free of their applause, you bury yourself in your lab. you have a robot to build and a future to secure and it doesn't matter if your hands are shaking because you have customized your workspace so that it's panic-proof, don't worry, this isn't anything you aren't used to, it's not like anything has really changed, has it?

you work nonstop for three days, accepting water at five-hour intervals and food at fifteen-hour intervals and not stopping until your throbbing headache can't be masked with ibuprofen any longer. you crash for twenty hours, then, sleep until you wake up dehydrated and nauseous to patryck gently prodding you awake with energy drinks and coffee that isn't sweet enough, not anymore. 

you refuel and do paperwork until the evening, go out to the shooting range and let loose your frustrations for a bit before calling it a night, showering for the first time since returning to the base and ignoring how your soap doesn't smell like his soap and you can live without him, really, you promise-

you dig through your drawers, find his hoodie, pull it on and huddle up in a ball. the trembling didn't go away, did it? you were too busy to notice. 

you went eight years without him. you would work and speak and laugh and shoot and live your life for months before the crippling loneliness would hit and you'd be dialing his number before you could stop yourself and you'd get your taste of him and move on quickly because revolutions don't run themselves, you know.

you try to convince yourself that you'll be able to forget him like that again.)

\---

You held out for two weeks. Two weeks of working and not sleeping and shaking and obsession with him, two weeks of waking up from dreams you can't understand to Patryck asking you why you were crying. You'd thought you could hold out longer.

You're standing in the hallway of his apartment complex, hands buried in your hoodie pocket, and you can feel your face twitching slightly as you wait for him to answer the door. 

The night is wrong and casting shadows at strange angles. You're vibrating with desperation and fear and confusion and the horrifying void of loneliness in your gut and nothing has been right since you'd left, god, nothing has been right but you have an army to run and he refuses to join you and you need him desperately and you can't believe you're here, what an idiot, how could you think that he would- 

Your mind is abruptly silenced when you hear the lock click. 

You take a quick breath and school your features, pretend like you're here of your own will and not because of the pounding constant fear-hate-love-tenderness that has been assaulting you since you left two weeks ago, two weeks, really, how pathetic that your mind's a mess, you were supposed to be better than this, and suddenly he's standing right in front of you.

He takes a step back reflexively and you flinch and he must see it because you see him steel himself, spread his feet a little wider to make himself harder to knock down (he's done this for years, you know his body language like the back of your own mechanical hand), tilt his chin and keep his tone level when he says, "Tord."

You want to respond with something witty but your eye is preoccupied with probing every inch of him, is he safe, has he changed since you've been gone, and his eyes catch yours and lock with it and you realize that this silence has stretched far past appropriate and into the realm of uncomfortable so you open your mouth to say something and then don't say anything and throw yourself into his arms.

He staggers back (good thing he braced himself, you think, delirious) and catches you and you're kissing him before he can say something and rip you open again, kissing him hard and fast and with all the skill you can muster and his arms are wrapping around your waist and you missed this, you missed him so badly-

When he pulls away, he looks at you through lidded eyes and his tone is full of wonder when he says, "you're back."

"Not for long," you warn, and his expression is conflicted but you take him by the wrist and drag him to the couch and catch a fistful of his shirt so that you can pull him down on top of you, legs tangled as you catch his mouth again and fuck, you'd missed this. "I have tonight and tonight only."

He's too busy pressing you against the sofa, clambering over you with his legs on either side of your hips and you let him bury his face in your neck and groan as he bites you, sucks hickie after hickie until you push him off and he's smiling like he's on the verge of tears and you pull him down into a bruising kiss. 

"Fuck," he breathes, his lips still brushing yours as your fingers skim his thighs, his arms, tangle in his hair the way you know he likes it, and you're grinning against his mouth and give him a quick peck before moving down to get at his throat, brutalizing it. There are still purple and yellowish marks from before you left, and you suck the hardest at those, making him moan and grind his half-hard dick against your stomach. When you bite down, hard enough to draw blood, he bucks his hips and lets out a desperate whimper.

Things are heating quickly, quicker than they ever have before between you, and you need this, need him desperately, and you let your hands run up under his shirt, trace up his stomach and run over his nipples as his breathing picks up, go to claw at his back and-

"Shit," he hisses, pulling away from you as your fingertips graze scar tissue. "That's-"

"May I see?" You need to know how bad it is. You need to know how badly you fucked him up. Tom, aroused and breathing hard and looking at you with wide eyes, hesitates. 

"Come on, darling. Show me," you say, your tone firmer. You reach down to massage the growing bulge in his pants, hold eye contact as he exhales slowly, lets his eyes fall shut. "Take your shirt off."

He shivers, obeys when you give his dick a hard squeeze. Carefully, he slips off his shirt, turns to show you his back.

It's still healing, the skin a shiny, angry red. The letters are irregular, jagged-edged, but unmistakable. 

_TORD_

Tom shifts when you reach out to trace the lines of it, grimacing in pain, but you're too absorbed to notice. You feel lightheaded. 

"Tord?" Tom finally mumbles, turning to face you. He catches you licking your lips, eye unfocused. "What is it?"

He's yours. He's yours and your claim is deep in his skin, unmistakeable, indisputable. He's yours and you carved it into him and you feel sick but also so, so turned on and he sees something in your expression that makes him go still. 

Yours. Yours. Yours.

You grab him by the throat with your mechanical arm and pull him down on top of you, ignoring his cry of pain as you start to rut against him frantically. He whimpers, tries to pull away from you but you have an iron grip on his hips, align your bodies so that you're frotting up against him and he arches his back at the sudden pleasure of it, falling against your chest as you grab at his ass through his jeans. 

You're panting dirty talk into his ear, calling him dog, slut, whore, slave, telling him all the things you want to do to him, and he thrusts up against you and cries out and you let one hand ruck up his shirt to expose his scarring back and all of your dirty talk is replaced with a steady stream of "you're mine you're mine mine mine mine-" and he's crying, it's too much for him as you reopen a healing cut with your nails and drag your cock against his and ask him _who do you belong to_.

"You," he gasps, and you bite his neck again, mark him again, he's yours he's yours he's yours and his hips are stuttering out of time as you smear his blood across his back. You're not going to last much longer like this.

He comes with a yell and collapses against you and you finish grinding up against his thigh before letting your head fall back onto the couch. You're both breathing hard and he's bleeding all over his shirt and he makes an uncharacteristic quiet sound, nudges your neck with the top of his head until you mess with his hair and let him curl up against you. He's bleeding everywhere but you don't say anything, letting him doze up against your chest. God, you'd missed him.

Slowly, he comes back into himself, sitting up and wincing as he stretches, moves a hand up his own spine to see how badly you'd messed up his healing skin. You watch the fear on his face when his fingers come away red. 

"Tord?" He finally asks, voice cracking on your name and fracturing you. He opens his mouth, struggles futilely for words, panics when he can't find any. You hush him, pull him back against your chest as he takes a shuddering breath, followed by another. You let yourself trace idle patterns on his side and stare up at the ceiling. 

"It's bleeding again," he murmurs against you, and stringing the phrase together sounds like an effort for him. "'S gonna get blood on the couch."

"I'll clean it up, darling. No need to worry," you lie, and he accepts this without question and hides his face in your chest as you touch the raw cuts again, suck his blood off your fingers and shiver. In his post-sex haze, Tom is clinging to you, and you savor it as best you can. You know what's coming next. 

It takes a few minutes for his breathing to settle out, and another few for him to remove himself from where he's tried to burrow himself into your body. You watch him unclench the muscles in his neck, his arms, his back in slow succession, feel him pull away from you as he remembers himself, as he remembers how you two got here. 

Finally, he groans and sits up, gives you a long look that you can't quite read. You want to pull him back down, hold him close and kiss the top of his head and fall asleep with him on the couch and wake up and not have to leave. You want him to come with you and pull you out of this constant tug-of-war between duty, ideals, saving the world and this feeling, the one you get between the end of sex and his wits returning, where you think that maybe he loves you.

He tries to stand, wobbles a bit before stumbling backwards onto the couch. The blood dripping from his cuts is starting to stain the waistband of his pants. You watch as he tries to get up again, fails again, drops his head into his hands. 

"... Can you help me clean off my back?" he asks eventually, defeated, and you wordlessly help him to the bathroom.

\---

("i think i'm seeing a trend here," he says, voice just slightly sarcastic as you grab the slowly-depleting medical kit from under the sink and pull out the antibacterial cream. 

you don't know how to respond to that. you clean his cuts and fix his bandages and feel like shit when he gasps in pain. you caused this.

when you're done repairing him, tom heads to the bedroom. you shower, wrap yourself in a towel, and follow him, ignoring where he's already laying in bed in favor of digging through his closet. you find some clothes that matt had bought for you, back when you lived here, buried deep in the closet. you pull them on without comment.

you get the lights, slip in bed next to him and rest your chin on the top of his head, ignore the way he tenses everywhere you touch him. you wind up curled around him, protective and possessive and suffocating, feel him give into your whims as he lets you run your hands up under his shirt. he doesn't respond when you kiss him. 

you're gone by the time he wakes up.)

\---

Paul doesn't ask questions when he picks you up in the early hours of the morning, even though you're sure that he sees the marks on your neck. You've always appreciated that about him.

"It's a safety hazard for you to keep pulling these sorts of solo missions, Red Leader," he finally says, and you internally applaud his choice of phrasing. 

"I'm well aware," you respond smoothly. Your hands are still shaking, but nowhere near as badly as they were before. "It's a necessary risk in order to maintain army productivity, Paul."

He snorts at that, the first breach of decorum that he's shown today.

"You're a good man, Paul. I'd hate to have to find a replacement." You're smiling a little, and he snorts again. Threat given, message received. 

"You don't need to worry about that, sir, now or ever."

\---

(you get back to work. you speak. you shoot. you lock yourself in the lab. you don't think about him.

there is a revolution coming. you can feel it in the skies the way you can feel a hurricane coming, a psychological low-pressure zone taking the world slowly, inevitably. you're gaining traction. 

you see your face on the internet, on television. small channels of no consequence. that's changing. you write a new manifesto and it spreads, information skipping like electricity through hearts and mouths other than your own. they call you their leader. they call you their savior. 

they need you and you will not fail them, but they will always be a them, distant, separate. you are alone on your podium, the weight of the world settling on your shoulders. 

you can't be atlas forever. you think of him, you think of him, you think of him.)

\---

You're thinking about the night before you left.

He felt good inside you, you remember, hot and thick and just what you needed to please yourself, his face flushed as he'd watched you prepare yourself, made you hard when you'd looked over and saw him touching himself at the sight of you. He'd loved you, he'd touched you and smiled and when you finished you were laughing with the sweetness of it because sex had never been like that before, never been sweet or painless before. You'd fucked and been fucked before him, but never like that. 

"What the hell are you doing here, Tord?" He enters the bedroom damp from the shower, naked save for a towel. He doesn't bother to bring up the fact that you'd broken into his apartment. 

"Waiting for you," you say with a smirk. What you don't say: his apartment feels like home in a way your fortress never will. You'll never feel safe there the way that you do with him.

He pulls a face and accepts this without further comment, turns to rummage through his clothes and doesn't acknowledge the hunger in your gaze when you see the scars on his back, doesn't put a shirt on before sitting down next to you on the bed, leaning over to towel off his hair. You trace a mechanical finger down his side. 

"Don't get your hopes up," he drawls. "I already showered once tonight and I don't intend to shower again."

"If you say so," you purr, edging a little closer to him. He shies away from you and you hesitate, retreat. "At least tell me about your day, then?"

"Not much to say." His gaze is on the wall as you run your robotic thumb over his hipbone. He's unreadable.

"I have something for you," you finally remark, and he leans back to quirk an eyebrow at you as you fumble through your jacket, check to make sure it didn't fall out of your pocket-

"Hell no," he says immediately, moving to get off the bed, but you catch his wrist with your prosthetic arm and hold him fast. "No, Tord, that's a level of fucked-up that I'm not into."

"But aren't you, though?" you ask, and he glares at you. "Hear me out, darling-"

"I'm not wearing a collar, Tord. That's..." He's glaring at it, the sleek black leather absorbing the light. There's an o-ring on the front, a soft red lining on the inside. You didn't spare any expense. "That's some BDSM... Something, I don't know."

"It is," you concede. "But think about it. You're mine, aren't you?"

He starts to protest, but you run a hand over his back and he freezes, tenses up. "Tord-"

"You're mine, Tom." Your voice is soft as you caress his scar tissue. "You like that you're mine, don't you?"

He's silent, not meeting your eyes. "Don't you?"

"Yeah," he concedes, as your fingers drift downwards.

"That's a good boy. See? You like it when I put you in your place. You like being reminded that you place is beneath me, Tom. You like being on your knees in front of me. This way, even when I can't be here, you'll remember that. Remember that you're mine."

His eyes are closed and he's stock still, every muscle tensed. You can see him struggling to not get hard. 

"Think about it, darling. Think about how good you feel when I tell you how dirty you are. Every time you take a breath, you'll feel it on your throat, Tom. Think of how good it'll feel to be owned like that." 

He's shaking now and you can't figure out why. You dig your nails into his back again, hear him whimper, keep going.

"You're mine, Tom. I want everyone to know that you're mine. I want to see the confirmation on your throat. I want you to never take it off. I want you to wear it when we fuck, Tom, I want to put you on a leash and call you my slut and make you beg. You're mine. All mine." 

"Tord, it hurts." You didnt realize that you had started clawing at his back until he starts writhing from the pain. He's looking at you with thinly-veiled terror (remember how he looked when he sucked on your gun, when he let your cock slap his cheek and swallowed you down and gagged) and you want to eat him alive. 

You take the collar and wrap it gently around his neck with bloody fingertips. He doesn't move to resist as you thread the strap through the buckle, tighten it until the o-ring is right where you want it. He doesn't resist as you kiss him. "See? It looks so good on you, darling." Yours, yours, yours. "Don't you like it?" 

He won't meet your eye, lets his fingers flutter up to touch the ring. It lets out a soft clink and you shudder, mouthing at his throat when he swallows hard.

"... Yeah."

\---

(you fuck him.

you pound him into the mattress, fast hard rough painful, hear his cries turn to moans turn to screams. you bite him, claw at his back and arms, slam into him as he begs for more.

you don't know that you're speaking at first, don't hear the way that you're babbling incoherently telling him that you're scared, tom, you're so fucking scared and the streetlights are wrong and english is wrong and you need him you need him you need him to keep you anchored stop you from dying stop you from suicide stop you from drowning in the cold fucking apathy of it all tom tom tom god please never leave me-

he comes hard, clenches around you, and you hit his prostate again again again as he sobs that it's too much, tord, stop, oh god-

your vision goes white.

you come back and see him bruised and bleeding, gasping for breath. your cum is leaking out of his ass and your collar is around his neck and you are pulling him against your chest as he continues to cry, drying his tears and breathing hard and he's yours yours yours yours you own him he loves you he's yours goddamnit you claimed him he's yours-)

\---

You're lying on his couch and staring at the ceiling. 

You don't know what you were expecting, really. You showed up at his door again with a duffle bag and a free weekend (you'd made it free, cleared it while Paul and Patryk tried to tell you that now was a bad time, the revolution needs you, sir, you can't keep doing this but you need him you need him you need him-) and he let you in, took your bags silently and moved them into his room. You sat with him and made chitchat until the inevitable happened and you fought and you fucked and now here you are, shirtless and staring at the ceiling while he perches on the arm of the couch and plucks at his bass and doesn't speak to you. His back is covered in fresh bandages, his body in fresh bites, your collar is around his neck and makes noises whenever he moves and when you sneak a glance at him he's fingering the ring, expression somewhere between rage and melancholy and you're starting to realize that maybe you don't understand him as well as you wish you did.

"Tom?"

He keeps plucking at his bass, a complex rhythm that you remember him agonizing over in college, now effortless. You realize, with a start, that you can't remember the last time you heard him make a pun. 

"What?"

"What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing." The bass doesn't stop, but you can hear the soft clink of his collar as he bows his head in concentration. You think it's concentration. "Why?"

"No reason," you reply, still not looking at him. "It's just..."

The bassline slows, stops after a moment as he waits for you to finish your thought. You really don't want to, but you can feel him staring at you, waiting. "When was the last time we talked? Actually talked, not-" dirty talk, screaming, begging, his sardonic little commentary when he's trying to get under your skin, get you angry enough to fuck him until he cries, "-you know."

You turn on your side so that you can watch him, and you're sure he's going to ignore your question when he finally says, "the night before you left."

With that, he looks away, turns back to his bass and starts to play. His collar makes a soft tinkling sound and he lets out a frustrated huff when he misses a note in his previously flawless progression.

You go back to staring at the ceiling. 

\---

(it's late and you're spooned up behind him, arms around his waist, when you ask him "do you still love me?"

he hesitates and your heart is in your throat, uncomfortably aware of its own fragility. 

"it'd be easier if i didn't," he finally says, and you think back to when you were younger and didn't understand love songs and god, this wasn't what you wanted.

but this is what you have: you have him, warm against you for the night, and you have the way he looks at you after sex and you have your name in his back and you have guilt, so much guilt, and you have his love despite himself and he rolls over and you kiss his forehead and he pulls closer to you and it's never going to be enough, is it.)

\---

Patryck is giving you the look he always gives you before a lecture, the one with the "I understand your pain" eyes and the "I won't take your bullshit" mouth. You turn back to workbench, tighten another minuscule bolt in your arm. You know what he's going to say and you don't want to hear it.

"He's a liability, Tord. You know that."

"Use my first name again and Paul will be out a partner," you reply airily. Patryck stiffens at both your implications, checks himself before continuing.

"Apologies, sir. My original point stands." You can feel his eyes boring into your neck. 

"I'm aware." 

"Sir, I understand that you have a complicated relationship with Tom, but letting him remain in an unsecured location that you are known to visit regularly puts both of your lives at risk. Red Army is beginning to make powerful enemies."

You finish tightening the bolt and pick up a small screwdriver. Your hand is trembling so hard that you can't get it into the screw at first. 

"What exactly do you propose, then?"

Patryck hesitates before responding. "You couldn't just relocate him to the base, could you? You would have done that by now."

"Brilliant observation, but that's not a solution." You pause as a particularly bad tremor goes through your hands. Don't want to strip the screw.

"Sir, as much as I hate to say it, the revolution should be taking priority over your relationshi-"

"Patryck." You're slowly tightening the screw. 

"Sir?"

"There wouldn't be a revolution without Tom." Your motivation, your obsession. "Red Army was created for him. The revolution was created for him."

"Sir, I understand that, but-"

"You're dismissed, Patryck."

He sighs, salutes, leaves you to your workbench and your shaking.

\---

("edd asked about the collar yesterday," he says. 

you'd come in shaking with rage and desperation and he'd let you in without a word and you didn't want to fuck you wanted to hold him tight against you and fall asleep next to him and wake up next to him and pretend that everything was okay between you but that's not how this story goes, is it.

so you screamed at him until he screamed back and you hit him and you fucked him and here you are now, laying on the couch with him on top of you, a pack of frozen peas pressed to his cheek to keep the swelling down. 

"oh?"

he snorts, leans in when you pet his hair gently, no sudden movements. you love him, you love him, you love him-

"he thinks i should consider therapy. says that i have stockholm syndrome." his eyes are drifting closed as he gives a bitter laugh. you reach down, grab your coat from where he'd thrown it to the floor, cover him with it like it's a blanket. 

"do you?" 

he's quiet as he adjusts the ice pack, collar clinking as he moves.

"i dunno. maybe.")

\---

"Are you feeling alright, sir?" Paul is giving you a funny look. 

"Of course I am." This is the third time this week you've called him for transport from Tom's apartment. "Why?"

"No reason," he says. He starts the car and lights up a cigarette.

\---

(why isn't he returning your calls.)

\---

Your army finally seizes its first real territory in a brutal ten-day skirmish. When the final treatise is signed, you return to your quarters and collapse in bed and take deep breaths and try to prepare for your victory speech and fail miserably. 

Patryck comes in eventually to bring you out to the podium, rests a hand on your shoulder and you jolt hard and make a strangled sound because it's too much, that's too much stimulation when your body is already buzzing from the stress of processing your clothes and the sheets and the air current from the fan, and he pulls away quickly and you start shaking again and what the hell is wrong with you, you don't have time to be breaking down like this-

\---

(patryck addresses the army instead, explains that red leader refuses to rest on his laurels, has already started working on the machinery for the next battle, and the crowd thinks you are invincible. you are their savior. you cannot let them down.

but he's not answering your calls and it's been almost two weeks that he's been gone, he's not in his apartment, you went looking for him after you signed thirty-six death certificates for soldiers as young as sixteen and vomited and he wasn't there and he won't answer your calls and you are crumbling you are crumbling you are-)

\---

You work for ninety-six hours continuously, unflinchingly, fight a war of attrition against your body until it finally gives out on you and you collapse in the middle of the hallway. 

Patryck asks you what the hell you think you're doing, Tord, you can't expect to lead an army if you're in this condition, what kind of stunt are you trying to pull, but you can't get your eye to focus anymore and finally Patryck tires himself out and carts you to the medbay and gives you an IV that forces you to sleep.

When you wake up, you ask him for a cell phone and dial Tom again and leave a pathetic fucking voicemail and why isn't he returning your calls-

\---

(you are hyperventilating you are hyperventilating you can't feel your fucking face your vision is going out you want to hurt him you want to make him bleed you want to drag him down through hell with you how dare he leave you like this-)

\---

You realize, in a rare moment of clarity, that they've stopped letting you onto the shooting range.

\---

(you don't have time for a breakdown, goddamnit, you have a revolution to lead and the world is growing tense and they're waiting for you to make your move, your army is writhing in anticipation and here you stand shaking above them all.

you are eris with your golden apple of a military and the gods of world governments and your sick feeling of betrayal because how dare the king forget you, how dare he forget you and you will bring the world to its knees and make sure he never forgets you again-

you target the uk.)

\---

The war is brutally, laughably short.

\---

(you are standing at your podium.

you don't know why he left you. you don't know where he is. but he will always be yours, yours, yours and nobody else can ever touch him and you will find him if it kills you. it doesn't matter that you're seizing the world. it doesn't matter that you have an army to lead. you will find him, goddamnit, you will find him and kiss him and you will crush anyone who gets in your way under your shiny steel-toed boot, fuck the future and fuck the army and fuck everything you stand for. this was always about him, wasn't it.

you scream philosophies and heartache into your microphone and your army will follow you to their deaths, endless lemmings, and you are their savior and they mean nothing to you, less than nothing, they are worms and you are god and you are atlas, always atlas goddamnit, always alone always 

fuck it

you're done with metaphors. 

you light a cigar and burn the podium to the ground.)

\---

Here's an allegory: once upon a time, there was a boy named Tord. And Tord was a bit of an idiot, you know? Optimistic, idealistic, certain that he could change the world.

And madly in love with a boy named Tom.

So Tord dedicated his life to fixing the world for Tom. He'll make it perfect, he'll make sure Tom never has to feel that desperate fucking loneliness that consumes Tord. Because Tom's worth it to Tord. Tom is Tord's everything.

So Tord grows up and realizes exactly how shitty the world is and he keeps fighting it because he has to, yeah? For Tom's sake. And Tom's an ungrateful little shit about it, but Tord can deal with that because sometimes they fuck and Tom's good in bed and sometimes he stops being an ungrateful shit and makes Tord feel a little bit less like offing himself, so it's fine. Everything's fine.

And Tord ventures off, stupid kid that he is, and pulls together an army and calls himself Red Leader and what Red Leader learns is that the world is essentially unfixable, right? He denies it at first but eventually he takes over the entirety of England and he realizes that nice political ideologies don't feed starving people and Tom is nowhere to be found when he crashes and Red Leader learns that Tord was too fucking soft for this shitshow of a world and hardens his heart and learns to stop letting people in like that because people? They always disappoint in the end.

Or should you say, The End. Because it's coming. There's a reckoning coming and Red Leader will be at the forefront and he'll show the world exactly how cruel he can be. Exactly how cruel they made him.

And the funny part? The fucking hilarious irony of all this shit?

He's still in love with Tom. 

Classic, stupid Tord.

\---

( _hey, this is tom. leave a message after the tone and i'll get back to you, probably._

you hang up.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "it rained down like (Pain!)  
> you break me down, you built me up,  
> believer, believer, (Pain!)  
> i let the bullets fly, oh let them rain,  
> my love, my life, my god it came from (Pain!)" - Believer, Imagine Dragons
> 
> \---
> 
> And with that, we end part two of TTB! To give y'all an update, here's my current writing queue:  
> 1\. The three requests from the end of TTB part one. All of the prompts are in, so expect to start seeing them soon!  
> 2\. A second chapter to the horrific crackfic Mark Me, Daddy~. You're welcome, AB.  
> 3\. The final chapter of TTB! 
> 
> In the meantime, I can also be found working on the Eddsworld Game, a video game project headed by my pal/kismesis @plsnskanks! 
> 
> Thanks as always to my favorite bluehaired bastard and beta reader, G (@jinxedlucky)! Hmu at @idiosyncraticmagic and see y'all soon for the end of Tick, Tick, Boom!


End file.
